This Is Kristin

~Last night my husband and I attended the Blood Water Mission banquet.  We heard many inspirational stories and songs, and I was especially touched by the story of Fred and Milton Ochieng’.  

They are “two brothers from Kenya whose village sent them to America to become doctors. But after losing both parents to AIDS they are left with a heartbreaking task: to return home and finish the health clinic their father started before getting sick.”    

Milton told a story of where his dream to bring a healthcare clinic into his village began:  The hospital is over 5 miles from his village, so if anyone got sick enough, they would have to wheel the person in a wheel barrow or carry them, to the main road and then find some sort of transport the rest of the way.  When Milton and Fred were teenagers, they witnessed their friends’ mother bleed to death in childbirth while being transported to the nearest hospital.  They knew that their village needed a healthcare clinic, and so Milton and Fred decided they’d become doctors and build a clinic in their village.   

They’ve managed to make it to America, attend college and medical school, and raise enough money through various donations and with the help of Blood Water Mission, they’ve built and staffed a clinic in their village.     

They’ve already witnessed how this clinic has helped the lives of the people of their village. Milton and Fred were visiting the village, during a time when the roads were barracaded and they were literally trapped within their village.  A woman went into labor with a breech baby.  If the clinic had not been there, they would not have been able to transport her to the hospital in time, due to the closing of the roads, and the complications of a breech delivery.  Milton and Fred brought her into the clinic, worked together, and delivered  the healthy baby who happened to be the grand daughter of the woman that they’d witnessed die all those years before.   

These are men with an incredible story, incredible hearts, and incredible ambition.  A documentary of their journey thus far has been made, titled “Sons of Lwala.” and is coming out sometime this spring.    

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